INSOMNIA
based on The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Like before, the climb to the volcano peak was long and sweltering. Tatl wasn't too fussed: uphill, downhill, it was all the same to her. But she knew that legs were bad with slopes, so she made sure to keep an eye on Link. Just in case.
Speaking of which, what an awful name. Growing up with it must have been murder. She had no idea why he hadn't just changed it to something respectable like 'Leaf'. Who knew, maybe it was the reason he had turned out so weird. Years of repression and nasty names could do that. Whoever had decided on 'Link' must have been a total vegetable... she almost felt bad thinking about it.
She glanced back. The kid was a few feet behind her, scrabbling up a forty-five degree incline.
"You okay there?" she asked him.
The show of sympathy was enough to clear her conscience. She felt better straight away. Link said something in reply, but Tatl's mind was already on other things. For example – the temple that they were marching back towards, the monster which they were supposed to deal with... and the falling moon. How were they supposed to stop that? Until a few days ago she hadn't known that anything as powerful as Majora's mask existed. If it took that much power to bring down the moon, how much power would it take to stop the thing that was bringing down the moon? And on and on...
Okay, to be honest, she kind of enjoyed the weirdness of this all. All those years spent with Tael, and later on Skull Kid, had certainly been fun, but in all the madness of the last few days she'd gotten to see things like that temple and the inside of the Deku palace, things she would never have heard of otherwise. And she had no doubt that there'd be more interesting sightseeing to come. If only the circumstances were a little more pleasant: friendlier companion, less head-hurting time travel, more time to sleep...
Romani Ranch. It had been a fair few years since she'd last been there, and the owner was different back then. The two redheads were probably the last fellow's daughters. She wondered how that had happened. He hadn't struck her as the lovable type.
And having that Cremia woman recognise her and everything. Had they really met before? What would happen if they didn't show up whenever they were supposed to show up? Maybe the world would implode, just like that, over a milk cart.
"You know what we need?" she said thoughtfully.
"What do we need?" said Link. He swatted away a beetle the size of his head.
"The Bombers – you remember the Bombers – they all carry around these little notebooks with them. Keeping track of all the promises they've made, and, you know..." She smiled, remembering that one time with the exploding ink. "But yeah, all this time travel business. How we were supposed to be at Romani Ranch last night and everything. It'd be way easier to just write down instead of having to remember every little detail like that..."
"I don't know," said Link. "I don't have room to carry ink around..."
"Uh huh," said Tatl, growing bored again. Just typical, shooting down every bit of advice she had to offer. And then he acted as if she wasn't helping.
Nothing like her brother. Sure, Tael could be rude at times, and he wasn't above a little roughhousing from time to time. But at least at the end of the day she could sit back and say that she understood him, that she had some idea what was going on inside his head. Even Skull Kid had been a half-decent person, back before this had all started.
But this Link kid was a whole different cage of birds. His arrogance was unbelievable. Seriously – the way he was acting after he had found his horse, it was like he'd forgotten their anniversary. It was like he thought everything was a matter of life and death, or that he was the centre of the universe or something.
"Hurry up," she snapped, frustrated. "We don't exactly have all day."
"I'm going as fast as I can," Link replied. He didn't even sound angry, the arrogant little twit.
"Well, go faster," said Tatl.
She sighed tiredly, and looked back towards town. She missed her brother. Skull Kid too. She missed a lot of things right now.
-oOo-
Woodfall Temple
The Southern Swamp
Damp stone, mouldy vines, low torches. Distantly, the trill of angry voices and the throb of beating drums.
Once they were inside Woodfall temple, Link and Tatl picked up where they had left off, exploring the sunken temple room by room. They passed through a half dozen narrow corridors, poking their heads in and out of more empty store rooms and unkempt gardens than either of them would have liked to count.
Not long afterwards they ran into a minor obstacle. They were in a high-ceilinged chamber. Its walls were lined with jars that smelt of incense and medicinal herbs. A thick pool of swamp water divided the room into two halves, spanned by a thin wooden bridge. There was a rotting wooden door on the far side, and Link started walking towards the bridge, already adding that door into his mental map of this place (tangled and spirally, like the leaves of a fern).
"Woah," said Tatl, holding up a hand. "Watch it."
"What is it?" said Link, coming to a stop.
The faerie shot up thirty feet or so into the air. "That," she said, pointing directly in front of her.
It was another Skulltula, hiding camouflaged amongst the ceiling's stark shadows. It dangled from a thick silken thread directly above the bridge. Its legs traced slow circles in the air, strangling an imaginary victim.
"Clever," Link muttered. Finding a choke point – that was smarter behaviour than he'd come to expect from Skulltulas. The ones in this temple did seem more vicious than the usual kind. Maybe it was related to the curse.
"What?" said Tatl, "no thank you?"
Ignoring her, Link paced sideways past the bridge.
"This isn't the first time I've saved your life, either."
"You didn't save my life," said Link distractedly. He had a clear view of the spider's underbelly from here. And if he could see it, he could certainly shoot it. "You just saw a spider."
"A spider that would have squashed you like a bug if you hadn't known about it."
Link pulled out the bow from its resting place, jammed unceremoniously between his sword and shield. He marvelled again at how light and slim the weapon was – far more elegant than any bow of Hylian design – and pulled an arrow from the quiver, inspecting it. The arrow was longer than he'd expected, but then again he had never used a bow as a child. Either way, it wasn't a big deal.
"Seriously, though," said Tatl, "what's it going take to get you to say thank you to me? You're polite to everyone else. You sucked up to those crony old witches, for crying out loud."
Link nocked the arrow and pulled it gently back. The tension in the drawstring was almost perfect – taut, but not quite taut enough to make him break a sweat. What was more, his right hand's grip on the frame didn't slide as the arrow stretched it back. (His last bow had been old and used, covered with a perpetual layer of grime that always slid if he took too long aiming his shots.) It was like this bow had been made for him.
"Okay, I get it, you don't care about people smaller than you. Fair enough. Some..."
"I'm trying to aim," said Link as politely as he could.
"Oh. Okay. Whatever you say." She dropped into a perch on his shoulder.
Link tried not to look annoyed. He was a little out of practice with his archery, and a captive audience wasn't going to make things any easier. He closed his eyes, trying to picture the trajectory of the arrow through the air: a windless room, nothing but gravity's gentle arc to worry about. It shouldn't have been this hard. It wasn't as if he hadn't shot hundreds of arrows before...
"My, my," the man said, his eyes burning straight through Link. "Shooting a man as he talks. So little tact."
With a grimace he ripped the arrow out of his neck and let it clatter to the ground, bloodless. There wasn't so much as a scar to show for it.
"And such speed. Such violence. No hesitation. I can already see we're not as different as I thought."
"Don't listen to him, Link!" A blue-white faerie, darting around behind the man. "Try again. The light spell."
Lost in the warlock's stare, it took Link a moment to understand. The light spell. Of course. He whipped another arrow out of his quiver-
With an annoyed scowl, the man raised one gauntleted hand and thrust it out behind him, palm out. A wave of shadow rippled from his curled fingers, and the faerie was flung back.
She smashed into a stained glass window, a spider's web of cracks forming behind her. She nearly cried out in pain, checked herself, and shouted: "Link! I can't help you! These waves of darkness... I can't get close... I'm sor-"
The man twisted his hand in the air and another shadowy bolt seared through the prone faerie. She screamed and screamed and the man turned to gaze at Link. His face was arrogantly calm.
"I must commend you, boy. Knowing that I will squash you like a fly, knowing that you cannot possibly harm me... What you lack in wisdom and power, you certainly make up for with blind..."
Skulltula. Link opened his eyes. He was holding a bow, aiming it. The next step was to release the arrow, shooting a living target, a tangible enemy. Skulltula.
The fingers of his left hand snapped open, and the arrow went hurtling through the air. They sunk straight into the spider's abdomen, about a foot higher than where he'd been aiming for. The creature screeched in pain, dropped from its hiding spot, bounced off the side of the bridge and landed in the rancid swamp water.
"Nice shot," said Tatl.
Dazed – to think that he was here in this room right now – he shook his head. "It went high."
"Still. I've seen bandits with worse aim."
Link frowned for a few seconds longer. After a moment an explanation occurred to him: his previous bow had had a slack bowstring, while this one was in perfect condition. He was overcompensating.
"Anyway." Tatl motioned to the bridge. "Shall we?"
-oOo-
They continued down the slick wet stone of the corridors, up and down, back and forth, snaking ever closer to the far side of the temple.
The steady drumming chant at the edge of his hearing was driving Link mad. Every time he was getting used to it, the rhythm would skip a beat, forcing itself back into the forefront of his mind. He was sure the noise was the monster's work. What better way to deal with enemies than to shatter their resolves before they even got close?
"Hey, Link," said Tatl, pronouncing the name like a punch line.
"Yes?" he panted in between breaths. They had reached a right spiral staircase, and it was taking him some effort to climb the knee-height slabs of stone.
"Your horse's name was Epony, right?"
"Epona." These steps were ridiculous. How could the Deku scrubs climb them? Their legs were even shorter than his.
"Whatever. So if that's your horse's name, then who's Navi?"
Link stopped with his left foot resting on the next step up. He stared at Tatl for a few hard seconds before saying anything.
"Where did you hear that name?" he said.
Tatl rolled her eyes. "You were saying it in your sleep. Not to mention every single time you zone out."
Great. Had he really been that careless? "I don't zone out."
"You so do. You didn't really take half a minute to aim a single arrow, did-" She paused, just on the brink of another tirade. Her lips curled into a grin. "Oh, nice try, kid. But you're not changing the subject that easily. Who is she?"
Annoyed, Link shook his head and continued up the staircase. "It's not important."
She quickly caught up with him and hovered alongside his ear. "Hey, I want to know."
"We have better things to talk about," said Link.
Tatl smirked. "Sensitive, are we?"
They reached the top of the staircase. The room ahead was cramped and circular. In its middle was a small raised dais shaped like a sundial – a strange centrepiece, given that there was no way for sunlight to reach the room. A dozen torches ringed the walls, casting faint shadows in all directions.
Link stepped towards the centre of the room, casting his eyes around. A third of the way around was another passageway, stretching off into the dark.
"I mean, I'm just curious," said Tatl, drifting casually alongside. "Just a hint? Pet? Little sister? Whatever the difference is..."
"I don't have to tell-"
"The Great Faerie once made me and my brother scrub clean the clock tower roof. Took us the better part of a month."
Link laughed, unable to help himself. "You're lying."
"No joke," said Tatl. "Seriously. Ask her. She called it a lesson in humility."
"Wow." Her? Humility?
"I guess all that rotten fish wasn't going to clean itself up." She shrugged. "Anyway, now you know all about me. Your turn."
Link sighed. The faerie clearly wasn't giving up. "Okay. Just one question." He reached the central dais and paused. For a moment the room seemed to get darker.
"One question. Okay..." She rubbed her chin, looking him up and down. "Navi. She someone in your family?"
He let out his breath. "No," he said. "Now-"
"Wait, wait, wait. Girlfriend? Wife?"
Link laughed and shook his head. "Nothing like that. Navi is a faerie."
"A what?" said Tatl.
"A faerie."
"Oh." She blinked. "Huh."
All of the torches in the room went out without a sound, and they were plunged into darkness.
Link cast his head around wildly. He couldn't make out a thing; the only thing in sight was Tatl's glowing yellow form.
Before he could so much as ask 'what was that?', Tatl was speaking. "Get your sword out, kid."
"What-"
"Sword."
Link drew his sword and stood still, looking around. An eerie silence had settled upon the pitch black room.
Tatl was by his ear. "Blackboes. The little shadow ball things. There's a couple dozen of them, moving pretty slowly. See their eyes?"
He couldn't. He was still adjusting to the darkness. Dozens of dots danced in front of his eyes, and he couldn't tell which belonged to the blackboes and which were after-images.
Link turned from side to side, sweeping his sword through the air. It was useless; if the creatures even noticed they didn't react. "Where are they?" he said.
"There," Tatl pointed, her hands now a burning bright against the rest of the room. "There. Another one there. Closest one is to your left."
"I can't see them," he said, unnerved. He remembered the blackboes they'd encountered near the temple entrance; how hard the sentient balls of darkness were to spot in a dimly lit room. Here, without any light at all save Tatl's, the blackboes were rendered completely invisible.
"Just calm down and attack it."
"I am calm." The worst thing of all was that the creatures were making no sound. None of his senses were any help.
"Look, there are just a lot of them, that's all."
Link fought to keep his voice level. "I can't see them."
"Okay," said Tatl, "don't panic, okay? Just slash right in front of you... now."
He swung his sword from left to right, once then twice, both times failing to connect with anything. Nothing. He was fighting against enemies he could neither see nor hear and the one person who could actually see them-
"Calm down, kid. You got it first try." Tatl sounded satisfied.
"What?"
"I said you got it. Okay, turn right."
He turned. "But I didn't feel-"
"More right. There. Get ready to slash. You didn't feel anything because blackboes, well, they aren't very solid. They... slash!..."
Link swept his sword again. This time he thought he felt something mid-swing: just the tiniest amount of resistance, as if the air was slightly thicker in one spot.
"What are those things?" he said.
"Magicky. Dunno where they come from – one's right behind you..."
He spun around to face the other way, slashed, and lowered, his weight, preparing to turn again.
"...but don't let that fool you. Left. Not that far left. They all jump on you – behind you – and weigh you down so you can't get rid of them – on your right!... Then they just slowly suck all the heat out of your body. Nasty way to go."
Link nodded. Even if the information didn't actually help him fight, it made him feel calmer. Every little detail about a creature – its name, its habitat, its fighting style – made it that much more grounded, that much less forbidding. As Navi had said, that all proved it was just as mortal as anything else.
"How many of them are there?"
"A few dozen, I think. One's coming up in front of you."
"Thanks." He raised his sword. "Can we get out of here without waiting around to see?"
"Sure. Just after – okay, I think it's going to jump – going for your chest – head – chest-"
He swung the sword, felt it slice through shadow, and nodded. "Which way?"
"Turn – ah, just follow me."
Flying backwards, she beckoned him off to the side. Link followed her, slowly at first, then breaking into a confident jog. He could tell by the ground that they were in an earthen tunnel, long and narrow.
Gradually, pace by pace, the light began to return.
-oOo-
They kept silent for a while after leaving that room. They continued through the temple, slowing down to deal with the occasional locked door or broken ladder, but neither spoke a word.
Link was still a little shaken by the experience – even in the Shadow Temple of Kakariko there had always been the slightest whoosh of a scythe or the faintest silhouette of an enemy to go on. Just then, he hadn't even been able to tell he was in danger, and to him that was scarier than any menacing movements. For her part, Tatl seemed lost in thought as well.
Eventually they came across a chamber with neither floor nor ceiling but a giant abyss spanned by thick tree stumps. Sunlight illuminated the pit for a few hundred feet, but it went down much further than the eye could see. It was as they were carefully making their way around the room's spiralling perimeter that Link remembered what he had forgotten in his panic.
"Tatl?" he said.
"Hmm?" She looked a little taken aback at his talking. "What is it?"
"Those blackboes. In that dark room. How many of them did I end up killing?"
She shrugged. "There were a lot of blackboes. You didn't get even half of them."
"But how many?"
She frowned thoughtfully. "Uh... a little over a half dozen. Seven or eight. Why? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," said Link. Seven. About as many as he'd thought. That plus the nest of spiders they'd encountered in the previous room.
Tatl looked at him sceptically. "Oh, really? Nothing?"
"Nothing important," said Link.
She nodded and looked away. Then, as if unable to resist, she turned back and added, "So this faerie friend of yours..."
"It's personal," said Link. "Bu... just drop it." (Had he been about to say buzz off? Where had that phrase even come from? Maybe bad puns were contagious...)
The door at the top of the room was large and circular. It was throbbing madly in time to the muffled drumbeats they'd heard all the way through the temple.
Tatl stated the obvious. "Looks like we're close."
Link nodded slowly. He stared at the door long and hard. It was unmarked, save for a crudely sketched charcoal outline on one corner. The outline vaguely resembled Majora's mask, the foul artefact that had possessed the Skull Kid. The charcoal looked recent.
"Well?" said Tatl. "There's a monkey roasting on a spit in the Deku palace, in case you've forgotten. Stop dawdling."
Link pressed his hand up against the door. For a moment, visions of past antagonists flashed before his eye: sadistic witches, serpentine dragons, skeletal horsemen. Then he swung it to the side and stepped through.
The room on the other side of the door was so tall that one couldn't see all the way to the top. The stone brick walls formed a wide circle some hundred feet wide. Every exposed surface was covered with intricate angular designs, their colours faded from the years. There was a Deku flower in the centre of the room. Torches lined the walls at regular intervals, burning impossibly bright.
Once he and Tatl were safely inside, Link slid the door shut behind him. The drumming and chanting they'd heard from all the way back at the temple entrance was now crystal clear, coming from all directions at once.
"Well?" the faerie said, looking around. "There's nothing here."
"There has to be something," said Link. They'd explored every other room in the temple, and there were no other exits here.
"Well, if you see something I don't..."
Link held up a hand. "Shh."
"I mean – what? What?"
"Do you hear the chanting?" said Link.
Tatl's brow furrowed for a few seconds. Then she turned to Link with a shrug and said:
"No."
There was an ear piercing, high pitched hollering noise, and both Link and Tatl looked up. Something large was hurtling towards them from the top of the room.
Link's jaw dropped a little. He took a step back.
A creature smashed down onto the floor in the centre of the room, landing in a crouch. It was large, tall, and humanoid, easily thirty feet tall. Its entire body was covered in brightly painted stripes and shapes. In its right hand was a sword, glistening sharp and nearly its own height. In its left hand was a shield in the shape of a elongated diamond.
Its face was what Link noticed most of all. No, not a face, a mask: a brown wooden mask with a permanent angry scowl carved into its centre. Glowing red pupils shone through its eye holes, the same colour as the moon's. Like a headdress, long feathers were crudely fastened to the edges of the mask with blood stains at the points where feather met wood.
Link drew his sword carefully.
"What is that?" he said aloud.
"Who cares?" said Tatl, wide eyed. "Let's get the hell out of here."
"We've gotten this far already." Inside he was trying to assess the creature's threat – he'd faced many swordsmen and many oversized creatures, but never one that was both. As he watched, it stood and began to bounce lightly on the balls of its feet.
Tatl was tugging at his tunic, trying to force him back towards the door. (She was having about as much success as could be expected when the size of a dragonfly tries to move something the size of a wolf.) "Come on, let's get out of here before it's too late!"
"You've never heard about anything remotely like this?" said Link. He carefully stepped around the perimeter of the room, making sure the creature was over two sword lengths away from him.
"What difference does it make?" Tatl's voice had risen to a fever pitch. "It's a giant, bloodthirsty, wingshredding monster and it's going to beat you to a pulp and then beat me to a pulp and then where are we all going to be? What the hell were we thinking coming near this place..."
"You don't know anything?" said Link, eyes locked on the monster. "Its name, its weaknesses. Even rumours. Stories."
Again, Tatl tugged at him to no effect. Giving up on this, she stuck herself in front of his face and began talking even faster. "What, you want to know its weak spot? Look at it! There is no weak spot! It's a big wingshredding monster with a big wingshredding sword and shield! There? Happy?" She made a choked noise – probably a hysterical laugh, possibly a hysterical scream. "You want to know its name? You want to know its freaking life story? Okay, how about Stupidkidslayer? It's Kidslayer, the horrible killer of Woodfall. It's, um, Drumdrum, the evil, chanting, sword-and-shield-ing, uh, masked jungle warrior. It's Odolwa, the – look out!"
Link detected the flash of movement before the faerie's warning reached his ears, and he dropped to his knees and raised his shield over his head, turtle-like, just before the monster's long sword swept horizontally over him.
As soon as he was sure the weapon had passed over him, Link sprang to his feet and dashed backwards, keeping his eyes on his opponent until he was well out of sword range.
The monster – Drumdrum, or Odolwa, or whatever it was called – slowly turned to face him. It lowered its shield to the side, leaving its body exposed, and trilled jestingly. It was a crude taunt, made all the more frustrating by its sheer size.
Link sidestepped again. The creature followed his movements, smoothly spinning to remain facing him.
Big and agile. Link frowned.
"Come on, let's get out of here," said Tatl.
Link launched himself into a sprint, running straight towards the creature. Its legs were the only part he could reach, but if he could bring it to the ground the fight would be over quickly. He zigzagged as he went, never staying still long enough for Odolwa to hit him.
The monster lunged forward and shoved its shield towards Link. Link saw the attack coming and raised his own shield, but the power of the blow knocked him to the ground. He scrambled upwards and rolled out of the way of another sword swipe.
Tatl laughed hysterically. "Do you not get this? It's going to beat you to a pulp. You will... okay, fine! Look, if you're not going, I'm still..." Her eyes widened even more. "Wait, you closed the door? Why the hell did you close the door? Wingshreds, do you want us dead?"
"There has to be an angle of attack," Link muttered to himself. He bent his knees again, preparing for another sprint. If Odolwa tried that trick again, maybe he-
"Kid! Link! If you get close to him, you'll be beaten!" She hovered right in front of his eyes. "Do you understand me? No, don't walk towards it! Are we even speaking the same language here!?"
Link kept his eyes on his opponent. Odolwa was still waiting there. Its legs were slightly bent, primed and ready to move at the slightest provocation.
Don't walk towards it. Maybe Tatl had the right idea there.
He took a step back, swapping his sword for his bow in one seamless movement. With the adrenaline in his veins it was all coming back, the way he always used to pull the arrow from his quiver, his mind already aiming before his arms made it together. From thought to completion it took him all of two seconds to fire the first arrow. He'd been faster once, too.
His first shot was aimed at Odolwa's face, the most vulnerable spot. When it crooked its head out of the way, he stepped forward and shot another arrow for its chest. The monster intercepted with its shield and Link's next arrow was already flying towards it, aiming for the sword shoulder. With an agile twist of the body, the monster avoided the shot, and Link's next arrow was flying towards its face.
The projectile connected. The monster stumbled back, flailing around with a maddened cry.
Certain his foe was blinded, Link sprinted forwards again, moving past Odolwa's guard and towards the monster's nearest leg. He slashed through it once, releasing a spray of not blood but some black bile-like substance. He swung his sword a second time...
...and Odolwa leaped up into the air and landed on the other side of the room. Link turn around and found it staring back angrily, apparently having recovered from the arrow.
Link pulled out his bow again, and the monster leapt directly up and out of sight.
"Where did it go?" said Link, instantly on guard. He preferred an enemy he could see.
"Who... cares?" hissed Tatl.
They looked up in the direction that Odolwa had disappeared. Nothing.
"Are you trying to make a point here?" said Tatl weakly. "Because whatever it is, you win. Please. Let's just go while we can."
"And then what?" said Link. He took a few steps back – if the monster decided to drop onto the floor again, it was safer near the walls. "We've come all this way."
"So what? Getting us both killed isn't going to fix anything!"
A distant humming reached Link's ears.
"What is that?" he said.
The air above them seemed to grow dark. The humming became steadily louder and louder.
Tatl looked up and sighed, sounding halfway between despair and resignation. "That's a lot of bugs."
With an overwhelming drone, thousands of moths descended from above, buzzing and spreading until they filled the room from wall to wall. Link threw up one arm to protect his face, but he couldn't cover himself completely, and more than a few scratched across the surface of his skin. He thought there might be blood but he couldn't see.
"Tatl?" he shouted.
"Over here!" Her voice seemed distant.
He turned, but the air was thick with insects. He swung his sword wildly but the cloud of moths simply rippled around his sword and stabilised a moment later.
Another wave of insects pelleted Link like hailstones. "It's not working!" he said through gritted teeth.
Tatl's voice, somewhere behind him. "Open the door!"
"No," said Link. "We can't run."
"Not us, the bugs! It's brighter outside!"
Link winced as another dozen insects slipped between his hands and his face. "Are you sure that-"
"Open the door!"
Link stepped back, reaching out with his sword until he felt the walls of the room. With his head ducked low, he ran around the room's circumference, stopping when he felt the smooth surface of the door. With both hands he pushed it open.
The effect was immediate. The moths closest to him flew out of the room straight away, attracted by the dying rays of daylight outside. As they went, the light streamed further into the room, causing more moths to fly towards the exit. Within half a minute Link could see the opposite wall again.
"See?" said Tatl. She flew towards him, swerving to dodge a few mindless insects. "Worked, didn't it?"
"Yeah," said Link slowly. "Thanks."
An angry wail from above signalled Odolwa's return.
"Oh, great," said Tatl.
Link motioned outside with his head. "You can run if you want. There's nothing stopping you."
There was a loud screeching noise and flashes of light from above. The monster had its sword embedded in the far wall and was skidding down. Sparks flew, setting some of the remaining moths on fire. It hit the ground and bent its knees into a crouch. Link grimaced and mirrored its foot position.
Odolwa shot forward with incredible speed, carving deadly patterns in the air with its sword. Link dashed out of harm's way, absorbing one or two of the blows with his shield.
With a longing look at the open doorway, Tatl followed him. "I hate you," she muttered.
Something about the comment made Link smile, but then the monster's sword was already hurtling towards him and he was diving out of the way.
For nearly a minute this continued – Odolwa stepped in and swung its giant sword, and Link was barely able to avoid it, time and time again – until Link managed to break away from the monster and reach the opposite end of the room, pausing to catch his breath.
"You're losing," said Tatl matter-of-factly.
"I'm not losing," panted Link. "I got its ankle before. It hasn't touched me."
"You're more tired than it is. You're losing."
She was right, of course, but he wasn't about to admit that to someone who didn't seem to know the slightest thing about combat. "There's always a way."
"Sure, sure. Come on. Cut your losses."
Link stared at Odolwa, thinking. The monster's agility was ridiculous for something of its size – big creatures were supposed to be slow and lumbering, nothing like this. Odolwa would probably still be dangerous to him if it was human size, and that was a sobering thought. There was no way he could win this fight on strength or speed alone.
Something by the monster's feet caught his eye. It was the Deku flower in the room's centre, the one he had spotted when he first entered. From the way the designs on the floor formed concentric circles around it, the flower must have had some ceremonial function, but right now all that Link really saw was that it was right next to the monster's foot. A brief memory of momentum resurfaced, and with it, the germ of an idea.
"I'm going to try something," he said, glancing at Tatl. (Could Odolwa understand him? He kept his voice low just in case.) "Let me know when it's above the Deku flower."
Tatl raised her eyebrows. "You're not going to try that thing you did with the Gekko, are you?"
"With the what?" Link pulled out his bow and a single arrow.
"Never mind. Go. Go!"
Link broke into a run, firing his bow at Odolwa. The first arrow went for the monster's face, which it deflected with its shield. The next two arrows it sidestepped; the next one hit it in the shoulder but it shrugged it off.
By this point Link was just twenty feet away from the Deku flower. He slipped the bow away, ducked his head, and kept running towards it. Odolwa stepped to the side, half-blocking his path. It hissed and readied its sword-
-and slashed horizontally, and Link dropped to the ground, sliding under the sword with only feet to spare. As soon as he was underneath the monster, he donned the Deku mask pain tendrils tearing into his face draining all the blood forcing sap and chlorophyll through his system screaming and dived onto the Deku flower, which swallowed him whole.
Safely inside, Link closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. This wasn't any more dangerous than any of the other things he'd once done. There was nothing to be scared of.
There's always something to be scared of, said the Kokiri boy. Always.
"Kid?" shouted Tatl from somewhere distantly. "It's right above you."
Now or never. With the moon still falling, Link knew which he'd rather take.
A simple thought, as natural as releasing an arrow, and the twisted vines and roots of the Deku flower moved as one, whipping upwards. With arms and legs folded in over his already compact body, Link was flung vertically through the air like a stone from a slingshot, whistling straight past Odolwa's chest and clipping it on the chin, knocking its head back in the process. The monster stumbled backwards a few feet, as dazed as the victim of any well-placed uppercut.
Link's upward trajectory continued for a second more before he felt the sickening lurch of gravity beginning to assert himself. He waited until he was almost motionless, then reached for where his ears normally were and ripped off the mask.
There was a slight moment of dizziness as the transformation magic was repealed. Then Link was in his own human body, much heavier than any Deku scrub and still some fifty feet above Odolwa's head. His sword was in his hand.
You may be bigger and faster than me..., he thought.
Odolwa, whatever it really was called, and wherever it came from, was undoubtedly a skilled fighter. Presented with such unusual behaviour, a skilled fighter would almost certainly have reacted, like by raising its shield, lashing out at its opponent in midair, or even just stepping back.
Instead, at the exact moment that Link was removing his Deku mask, Tatl had risen up to the monster's head height and begun zooming towards its head.
"I'm not really doing this," she muttered, as she hurtled closer. "I'm not really doing this, this is all just a bad dream, I'm just going to... wingshreds... okay, just... hey, over here, you giant oaf!..."
At the last minute she swerved, missing the monster's masked face by just a few feet. Odolwa turned its head slightly, following her trajectory until it was satisfied she was no immediate threat. Then it looked back up and something small and green zipped straight through its field of vision. For a split second as he fell past, the boy's eyes met the monster's.
...but you're no Ganon.
Held tightly in a two-handed downward grip, Link's sword pierced straight through the monster's neck. The blade glowed with friction as Link hurtled onwards towards the ground, tearing a vertical, bile-oozing line through the monster's chest and stomach before catching on the metal belt fastened around its waist.
Link lost his grip on the sword and tumbled towards the ground. He splayed his arms, but they did little to soften the impact as he landed on his back.
Odolwa screeched in agony and dropped to its knees. With a violent shudder, its sword and shield dissolved into a swarm of flies that burst into flames and fell to the ground like so many dead leaves.
With one trembling hand, it reached in Link's direction. Then its entire body glowed and shrank into nothing, leaving only the mask, which clattered noisily to the ground.
The drumming stopped.
Tatl landed a safe distance from the mask. "Is it dead?" she said. Then, noticing Link: "Hey, are you okay?"
He gasped, sucking in air. His ears were ringing from the fall, but as far as he could tell nothing was broken.
Tatl was by his side immediately. "That was amazing," she gushed with a disbelieving grin. "You just killed it. Just like that! Of course I helped. But still, that was amazing. Where did you learn to do that?"
With a groan, Link rolled over and staggered to his feet. His sword wasn't far away. It had clattered to the ground near the mask when the monster had vanished.
"Is it dead?" he said.
"How should I know?" said Tatl. "You're the super monster killer."
"You're the... magic person," he managed, too dizzy to finish the sentence properly.
"Oh." Tatl squinted in the mask's direction. "Wow. That is some nasty dark magic there. Looks a little like the stuff Skull Kid had on you, but a lot more..."
"Evil?" said Link. He crouched and picked up his sword.
"Kind of. Evil comes in flavours. If you think of your Deku curse as the rotten peaches kind of evil, then this thing is more like... burnt wood, I guess."
"...meaning..."
Tatl shrugged. "Now you know. If you want to be safe, just smash the mask up. Whatever magic's left in there won't last once there's nothing real – uh, physical – to hold it together."
"Break the mask?" said Link.
"Can't hurt."
"All right." He felt exhausted. He didn't want to move. "All right."
Gripping his sword in one hand, Link walked towards the fallen monster's mask. Still off balance from the fall, his steps were uneven. To steady himself he stared straight ahead, looking more closely at the thing he was about to destroy.
It was a wooden mask, its surface made hard and dark by centuries of resin, streaks of tribal markings and mangled feathers, and as Link looked at its eyes something inside its lifeless form seemed to stare back, and suddenly it was inside his head and he could see the swamp rotting, the Skull Kid laughing, saying, this is the mask of a jungle warrior, forged in the thick suffocating mists of the swamp and flames of xenophobia, generations upon generations of tribesmen living in fear of false gods and greater fear still of the outside world, and year by year the walls rise, an unbreakable line between 'us' and 'them', and your friends, what kind of people are they?, I wonder, do those people think of you as a friend?, and the sky blackens and the days slow to a standstill for when you trust nobody, time has no meaning-
Somehow, through all the noise that was raging inside his head, Link slowly pushed past it. With his mind a blank, he raised his sword and brought it down upon Odolwa's remains. The sword struck home.
The mask shattered into a thousand fragments with a rush of air and a ripple of shadow that made Link's hair stand on end. Then, as the traces of dark magic faded away, a pinpoint of light appeared where the mask had been.
"What is that?" whispered Tatl.
"More dark magic?" Link shrugged. "You'd know more than I do."
They both stood there, unmoving. Suddenly, the point of light expanded, growing into a line, a circle, a sphere...
Tatl gasped. "Not the... monster... Something... else..." She blinked, her pupils dilating. Her mouth hung open.
Sensing the change in his companion, Link took a step away from the light, reaching for his sword.
"No," said Tatl. Her voice was soft, as if she were dreaming. "It won't hurt you..."
Moments later the light had engulfed them both. It faded, and they were no longer in Woodfall.
They were standing on a giant pillar, so tall that it stretched above the clouds. He could see them, the clouds, forming a sea that stretched off in all directions, weightless and picture book puffy. Then at their level there were more clouds still, some forming thick cliffs in the distance, others flowing down from the open sky above like wispy waterfalls. There were bubbles everywhere, or so Link thought: every time he tried to look closer at one it disappeared with a pop. Everything was tinged with the faintest shade of autumn green.
Link's body felt unnaturally light, like a stray gust of wind might blow him away. He had enough presence of mind to realise what that meant.
"This isn't real," he said. "It's a dream."
Beside him, Tatl half smiled. "You don't say, kid. Any idea what's going on?"
From the distance, beyond the forests of mist, came a long moan, deep and mournful.
"Did you hear that?" said Link.
"Of course I..." Tatl gasped. "What's that?"
She pointed and Link followed with his eyes. For a moment, he thought he made out something obscured behind the layers and layers of cloud. A long, misshapen limb. The hint of a face. An eye the size of a house, dark and unreadable. But it was all too far away to be sure.
The creature – no, that word would never do, it could never evoke the majesty of the thing Link had seen for a fraction of a second – the giant moaned again, and this time Link heard something else with it, the quietest hint of a plucked lyre and a rippling harp. Music. Even as it wept, the creature was singing.
Listening to the giant's pained melody, Link had the strangest sense of deja vu. He was sure he had never heard it before, and yet it sounded... right.
He opened his mouth to ask Tatl if she knew the song, but she silenced him with a finger.
"Wait..." she breathed. "Listen... it's saying something..."
Saying something? Link kept his ears pricked, trying to hear something else between the notes, but a few minutes past and he found nothing.
"I can't hear words," he said in a low voice. "Only notes."
"Well, don't just stand there," Tatl whispered back. Her eyes were still fixed in the giant's direction. They were glazing over. "Get your ora... get your instrument out. That crying must mean something. You know it has to."
Link looked down. His ocarina was in his hands. He wasn't sure if he had taken it out by instinct, or if it had simply appeared there when the vision had demanded it. He put the instrument to his lips and closed his eyes.
The giant's song was simple once he listened enough: it was what Saria would have called an arpeggio, a fingering exercise, a simple line that ran up and down a single chord. Yet somehow, between the giant's sonorous voice and the strange dreamy atmosphere of this place, the melody changed from structured study to orderly oath.
As soon as he had played the last note, the giant's voice changed. It was no longer singing, it was now moaning a single low note that lasted half a minute and more.
"What are you saying?" Link called into the mist and fog. "What does the song mean?"
Silence.
"'Call us.'"
Link turned.
"That's what it's saying," whispered Tatl. There was a reverence in her voice Link had never thought her capable of. "'Call us'..."
The clouds parted, and for an infinitesimal moment Link could see the giant's face, inhuman and venerable. Then it blinked and the vision went collapsing in upon itself. Moments later they were back in Woodfall temple where, for now, silence reigned.
A/N: I know I say this every time, but if you have any constructive comments to make, this chapter would be a great time. (Thanks as usual to all the people who left flattering reviews. They're like a drug. They keep me coming back for more. What? That sounds creepy? Don't be ridiculous.)
Now, in no particular order:
- The flashback in this chapter ("My, my..."). Before now, I've mostly referred to Link's past with the occasional sentence, as opposed to the giant few-hundred-words block of text this time round. Did it work for you? Was it too much of an interruption?
(Just to be clear, I'm not moving to this style of 'flashback' permanently. Personally I'd rather just mix and match, using whatever seems best for the mood and the pacing of the story. There will be at least one more long-ish flashback like this in the second last chapter. I mean, if we make it there.)
- This whole drumming-chanting thing: a few chapters ago, some reviewers seemed to think I had invented the whole thing. On that note, you should all totally search up the music for Woodfall temple (which is one of my favourite dungeon themes from the N64 games), and then ramp up the 'sinister' meter.
- The end of cycle 1 is nigh. Just throwing that up there. I reckon it'll be two or three chapters more, hopefully pretty short, and hopefully including an 'interlude' in there somewhere.
But now this author's note is getting a bit long. Let's just end it here. Remember, if you have any thoughts on this (loooong) chapter, your reviews are always appreciated.